Payne Shurvell – Circulation

About –

For almost twenty years British artist Peter Newman has been making photographs, sculptures, paintings and video installations that address the human relationship to space and modernity.

Circulation is a play on the photographic process employed – whereby a scene is rendered into a circular panorama – but also references other forms of movement and systems – information, dynamics, biology, people, financial & atmospheric.

The Metropoly series of photographs are taken using a vintage scientific lens that captures a 180-degree field of view. Originally invented for astronomy and to observe atmospheric phenomenon, here the artist uses the ‘all-sky’ lens to record the urban panorama overhead. Newman spends days searching for the precise vantage point from where everything falls into place, and the time at which to record it. The photographs are created in-camera, with a single exposure and a minimum of post-production. The circular images celebrate a variety of iconic architecture, the way it reveals the character of a city and frames the sky above.

Also on show are his Skyspace wall sculptures – cut from aluminium and occupying a mid-point between sculpture, painting and photography – depicting the negative space of the Metropoly images. Further works from the Schemata series of etched aluminum panels, a time-lapse film of Park Avenue in New York and a site-specific photography piece complete the show.

Newman’s work is about discovering a new perspective to what is always there.

This exhibition investigates the notion of the city as a machine and an instrument of communication.